1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to chassis assemblies for computers and, more particularly, to a chassis assembly for tower desktop computers, including a bottom chassis and main chassis suitable for being manually assembled and disassembled, thus allowing a user to easily handle the assembly with improved work efficiency while repairing or upgrading a computer.
2. Related Art
An exemplary chassis assembly for tower desktop computers comprises two chassis: a main chassis and a bottom chassis. The main chassis is open at the top and one side and is closed at the front and back, thus having front and rear panels. The bottom chassis is integrated with the main chassis across the bottom between the front and rear panels. The main chassis provides a mounting area for a plurality of auxiliary units, such as a power supply, a hard disc drive, a floppy disc drive and a compact disc drive, while the bottom chassis provides a mounting area for a mother board. An option board is installed in the main chassis at a position perpendicular to the mother board. Formed on the option board are a plurality of expansion slots for mounting option cards to the main chassis. The above chassis assembly is covered with a detachable cover.
However, such a chassis assembly is problematic since the main and bottom chassis and are integrated into a single structure. The chassis assembly, with the integrated main and bottom chassis, can be produced through two methods. That is, the integrated bottom chassis can be formed by bending the lower portion of the front or rear panel of the main chassis. Alternately, such a bottom chassis can be formed separate from the front or rear panel prior to being integrated with the lower edges of the front and rear panels into a single body through a riveting or spot welding process. Since the chassis assembly has an integrated structure as described above, the cover has to be removed from the chassis assembly when it is necessary to repair or upgrade the computer. The typical chassis assemblies thus reduce work efficiency while repairing or upgrading a computer and are inconvenient to users.
Particularly when the bottom chassis is formed separate from the main chassis and is integrated with the main chassis into a single body through a riveting or spot welding process, the process of producing the chassis assembly is complicated, reducing productivity of the chassis assembly. When the bottom chassis is integrally formed with the main chassis through a pressing process, the size of the main chassis is enlarged, resulting in time consumption while preparing metal molds for the main chassis.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,159,528 to Murphy, entitled Modular Personal Computer, discloses a modular personal computer and U.S. Pat. No. 5,271,152 to Murphy, entitled Process For Making A Computer Tower Chassis Using modules, discloses a process for making a computer tower chassis using modules. These U.S. patents to Murphy disclose a computer tower chassis having a base system unit and a main circuit board subassembly, with the base system unit including a base system frame having a front panel and a rear panel and a supporting frame therebetween. The main circuit board subassembly includes a main circuit board, an input/output board and cable, speaker and cable, fan assembly and cable, keyboard cable, expansion card and expansion card guides.
Also, U.S. Pat. No. 5,175,670 to Wang, entitled Housing Structure For A Computer, discloses a housing structure for a computer. Wang discloses a high capacity computer case that includes a front case plate, a rear case plate, three reinforced rods, a computer locking plate, a bottom plate, and a slot clip member. Located between the front case plate and the rear case plate in a parallel manner are the three reinforced rods. The computer locking plate is disclosed as being arranged at the lower half portion of one side of the computer case, with both ends of the locking plate, in conjunction with the three reinforced rods, being spot welded to the front and the rear case plates. The bottom plate is disclosed as being welded respectively to the front case plate, the rear case plate, and the three reinforced rods. A slot clip member of rectangular construction is disclosed as being a supplementary device including at one end thereof two lugs having thereon arresting portions and at other end thereof a predetermined number of clip grooves for disposing a longer expansion slot card.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,227,957 to Deters, entitled Modular Computer System With Passive Backplane, discloses a modular computer chassis with a passive backplane that is provided for a personal computer system with a plurality of open-ended and vertically or horizontally interconnectable bays, or a single case with bays, for slidably receiving component trays each having a printed double sided bus direction adaptor board with a bus connector at one end and a female bus connector mounted to the top surface for attaching an expansion card parallel to the board. Also, a front cover, or individual tray covers, cover the front of the chassis as a locking and security mechanism.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,417,012 to Brightman et al., entitled Equipment Cabinet Door Mountable On Either Side And Having A Central Latch, discloses an equipment cabinet door mountable on either side and having a central latch. The equipment cabinet is disclosed as employing a rack-mountable equipment enclosure surrounded by a base, a cap, and front and rear covers. Each cover consists of a bezel and a door reversibly mounted thereon via removable hinge pins. The bezels have sidewalls that rest against ledges on the edges of the enclosure to receive support therefrom, and the door has a centrally-located latch, with the latch having a pawl with an eccentric catch portion that engages a latch opening on a ledge extending from the bezel. The pawl also has a tab that rests between the ends of an arcuate raised portion on the rear of the door to limit the rotational travel of the pawl.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,491,611 to Stewart et al., entitled Aligned Quick Connect Cover For A Computer System, discloses an aligned quick connect cover for a computer system. A computer system is disclosed having a cover for a frame, whereby the cover has a user panel and a service panel each including a plurality of inwardly extending and angled slots to be aligned with rearwardly facing tabs on the frame to facilitate a quick sliding connection of the cover to the frame.
Also, U.S. Pat. No. 5,717,570 to Kikinis, entitled Enhanced Mini-Tower Computer Architecture discloses an enhanced mini-tower computer architecture. A computer enclosure is disclosed that has a drive bay for multiple hard disk drives implemented in the rear panel rather than in the front, providing sufficient storage capacity for use as a file server in a mini-tower architecture. In an alternative embodiment, Kikinis discloses the side panels are designed for quick removal by moving a panel against a spring element for release. Also, in an embodiment Kikinis discloses access to the drive bay in the rear panel is controlled by a security door with a lock, and security screws for the removable side panels are located behind the security door.